The iron pilgrim - an aspect from the cult of Saint James the Elder

Ne wight with him for his assistance went, 

But that great yron groome, his gard and gouernment 

- Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (Book 5, Canto 4, Verse 3) 

What did you see? Mere ironwork ... He exists without existing, understand, recruit? 

- Italo Calvino, The Nonexistent Knight (translated by Archibald Colquhoun) 

As today is July 25 - at least in my time zone - I am reflecting on the cult of Saint James the Elder, whose feast is today. One of Christ's closest apostles, he became the focal point of a cult centred in Compostela which surged in the early twelfth century, and which resulted in a plethora of various depictions and interpretations throughout the centuries. There are several images of Saint James the Elder - both in texts and pictorial art - which emphasise different aspects of him. For some, he is the apostle, for others he is the battle-helper, the pilgrim, or the moor-slayer. And for some, he is all of these things and more. This multifacted interpretation of a figure is something that fascinates me, as the various images that co-exist and circulate concurrently are excellent ways of analysing and understanding historical memory of one or several communities. 

Throughout the Middle Ages, Saint James the pilgrim became widely known from the twelfth century onwards, due to a concerted effort from the custodians of the saint's cult at Compostela in Galicia. As they were the keepers of the saint's holy body, they were best situated to offer interpretations of his patronage to the wider world. Through sermons, prose narratives, liturgy and various forms of pictorial art commissioned for the church space, archbishop and his retinue presented the faithful with a composite image of the saint which allowed various audiences different reference points for connecting with the holy man. For some, James' protection of pilgrims was of particular interest, so this aspect was what they emphasised, and it was this patronage they sought when needed. Since the fame of Saint James spread through pilgrims, it is no wonder that so much of the surviving source material of texts and images depict the saint dressed in the characteristic broad hat, carrying the staff and the flask, all of which are emblematic of the pilgrim and - by extension - of the saint and therefore of the connection between pilgrim and saint. This emphasis was a historical interpretation, and a shaping of historical memory. Saint James the pilgrim remains a powerful figure in today's cult, too. 

As I was going through some photos from my first visit to Santiago de Compostela, I came across one picture that caused me to think more carefully about the iconography of saints in genereal. The figure is a machine that allows you to insert coins and imprint a commemorative stamp on them as a keepsake of the journey to one of the largest pilgrimage sites of Latin Christendom. The machine is shaped like a pilgrim, recognisable in its hat and carrying the iconic staff. In this way, a common tourist trap has been dressed up with a local specificity, and it becomes in effect a nexus between images of faith and images of commerce. The commercial interests of the shops borrow the iconography of the religious centre in order to make money. This is a very medieval practice, and not very far removed from the pilgrim badges sold at the various cult centre.   

This nexus beteween the religious iconography of the cult of Saint James on the one hand, and the derivative iconography of local tourism poses an interesting quandary for saint scholars. Because on the one hand, it seems fair to assume that this mechanical pilgrim is not meant to depict Saint James himself, but rather a stylised pilgrim. On the other hand, however, the stylised pilgrim is an iconographical shorthand for Saint James. Those who travel to the shrine at Compostela will immediately recognise the hat-wearing holy man in the various statues and images encountered throughout the city. Even though the stickers on the machine advertise new coin-stamps that depict apostolic, ecclesiastical iconography, most visitors will be aware that Saint James the Apostle and Saint James the Pilgrim are one and the same figure.  

Can we, then, at some level, claim that this metal pilgrim shaped to attract visitors depicts Saint James the Elder? It depends on how we understand iconographical representation. That the two figures - the saint and the pilgrim - are connected is beyond any controversy. But to what extent can a figure be seen as separate from its representative. I believe that this separation is a spectrum, and that it depends entirely on the viewer whether what is seen should be understood as a representational depiction or a direct depiction, whether it is depicting a symbol of the saint or the saint himself. Someone sufficiently well-versed in the iconography of Saint James the Elder but not particularly careful in their observation might take this machine to be a statue of the saint himself - a rather simplistically stylised statue but nonetheless an image of the holy man believed to be buried in the cathedral. A passer-by might offer a prayer to the metal figure, thinking it to be one of those pictorial renditions of the saint that serve to allow for a more tangible point of connection between the earthly and the heavenly. After all, a wooden statue of Saint James would partly have precisely the same function. 

This pilgrim-shaped machine is a reminder that religion is formed in large part by those who practice it, and that individual religious expressions must be understood as elements in the sum total of that religion's history. If someone interprets this pilgrim-shaped machine as a holy statue, the machine becomes such a statue to all intents and purposes, at least for the person who makes that interpretation. For me, a researcher whose analysis is mainly limited to the official, authoritative images of saints and other memorialised figures, these impossible questions about individual expressions of faith provide good reminders that what I study is only part of a greater whole. Reminders that there can at any point exist interpretations of saints to which I will have no access because those interpretations have not been committed to sources. Such reminders serve to keep me from being overly confident in my own analysis, and that is a very good thing. 

Serendipity as method, or - The case for reading broadly

 

Sometimes they stand too near the problem. Often, if a person looks at something very closely he can see a few things more clearly, but the shape of the whole thing escapes him

- Edgar Allan Poe, The Murders in the Rue Morgue

 

After close to fifteen years as a professional medievalist, I remain hesitant about giving advice to students and younger colleagues. Academia has undergone so many changes, has seen so many trends come and go, and has sustained repeated damage from governments and funding institutions. Even though I am still relatively early in my career, the factors that helped me succeed when starting out as a freshly-defended MA are not necessarily relevant in the current climate. And as someone who has witnessed a lot of bad, outdated advice – however well-intentioned – doled out to either myself, colleagues or my generation of medievalists, I am painfully aware that such advice can sometimes lead dangerously astray or serve as a testament to the gulf between those who have secured permanent positions and those who might never be able to do so. Giving advice as an academic, therefore, can be something of a poisoned chalice.

 

There is, however, one advice that I will give unhesitatingly, unreservedly, and even unprompted. That advice is to read broadly, no matter your topic, your field, or your discipline. In academia, there is a widespread and often unspoken assumption that in order to become an expert on your topic, you have to dig deep and only dig deep. In an academic environment tainted both by the perverse logic of business and by the centre-of-the-box thinking of funding bodies, it is very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you should not waste time reading what is not immediately relevant to what you are working on at the moment – whether it is for a particular course, a dissertation, or a thesis. You dig deep, you become an expert, and you show that expertise by presenting information gleaned both from the sources and from the secondary literature. But the problem of digging deep without also minding the breadth is that you become very isolated.

 

The idea that you need to be laser-focused on your particular topic in order to be a good academic is a misguided approach to transforming information into knowledge, and converting data into understanding. When starting out as an academic, you do not know enough about your topic to evaluate which source texts or which studies are going to be useful for your analysis. Much like you cannot draw a map of a road until after you have travelled to its end, you do not have the expertise at the beginning that you are going to have at the end of your degree. After all, the whole point of doing an MA or a PhD is to expand your knowledge and increase your expertise so that you are better prepared for the work that lies ahead of you, no matter whether that work is related to academia or not. 

 

Because we do not know what aids our analysis until after the analysis is done, the laser-focus approach to reading means that it is very easy to miss connections that can only be made when looking beyond where the laser is pointing. It is not impossible to get good results by myopically staring at the most relevant material – it is, indeed, frequently done – but that approach is absolutely no guarantee that you will get the best result, or even the result for which you are hoping. Due to the uncertainty of how analytical breakthroughs are made – because they are unique events that depend on the material contained in the analyst’s brain – we are best prepared for making such breakthroughs by reading beyond the confines of one’s chosen topic. Reading broadly is a way of shifting focus away from your main object and thereby seeing that object in a different light. It might be helpful to learn, for instance, that there are cases similar to yours in the vast repository of available historical information. It is healthy to be reminded that no matter how unique your material is, the finiteness of human imagination and creativity means that it is far less unique than you at first might be tempted to believe. In short, reading broadly allows you to situate yourself in a much broader context, which in turn enables you to understand how your topic is unique and also how it is not. Good analysis depends on both these types of understanding.  

 

The fact that we do not know from the onset what reading we need to do in order to make fruitful connections can at times be daunting. It is easy to worry that you are going to miss a text that will give you the one connection you need for your breakthrough. It is easy to become obsessive and turn the virtue of reading broadly into the vice of reading everything. Consequently, it is also important to embrace serendipity as method when setting out to read broadly. Because there is no single solution for how you should read in order to do the analysis you want to do, to have those revelations that allow you to move the state of the art a few inches further, and to allow you to say something new and valuable on the topic at hand. This means that instead of reading everything, you read a bit here and a bit there, waiting for the revelations to come. And when they do not come, you make do with good old-fashioned gruntwork. 

Recently, I was reminded of how reading broadly and applying serendipity as method can be immensely rewarding. Earlier this year, I bought El Diccionario de lugares utópicos [Dictionary of utopian places], edited by Juan Pro and published by Silex in 2022. It can be downloaded as a PDF here. This dictionary is a wonderful resource for anyone working on utopian thinking, and I have spent many hours this summer poring over several of its entries. What prompted the purchase of this book was that I am working on an article on violence in utopian societies, co-authored with a friend of mine. Several of the dictionary’s entries have proved very useful, but since I also want to read the book in its entirety I have also spent time on entries further removed from our topic. 

 

Admittedly, reading entries from a dictionary of utopian places when co-authoring an article on utopian thinking does not qualify as reading broadly, even though some of the entries in question have pertained to times and places very far removed from the scope of the article. But the revelations I experienced when perusing entries on the fringes of relevance for this particular article had nothing to do with it. Instead, I suddenly encountered formulations and key points that allowed me to get a much better understanding of a very different topic.

 

For two forthcoming publications, I am again delving into the cult of saints in medieval Norway. I am particularly interested in the ways in which specific cults enabled elite groups to formulate a vision of a golden age in order to legitimise attempts to recreate that past golden age in the present. This way of manipulating history is a universal feature of human history, and although this manipulation unfolds in a unique way in medieval Norway, its unfolding is not wholly alien to other similar manipulation projects. Consequently, as I was reading about the role of the Inca Empire in modern-day Peruvian utopianism, I encountered a formulation by a Peruvian historian that fitted perfectly into an analytical point that I had tried to put into writing. The contexts of the two topics are of course very different, emerging as they have from unique historical trajectories. Nonetheless, because humans can only seek power in so many ways, the contexts were sufficiently similar that I was able to use one to illuminate the other. 

 

There is a particular joy in embracing serendipity as method. Rather than worrying about whether you are missing any of the important texts pertaining to your topic, you can read beyond your field with a clear conscience, knowing that there is no single revelation to find, and acknowledging that revelations can strike from many different directions. It is impossible to say whether it will come from a study on a very different topic, from a novel, from a poem, or from a comic book. By reading broadly and expanding your frame of reference, you are better suited to catching such connections that might help you strengthen and deepen your analysis. Consequently, there are no wrong turns to make, no wasted pages, no lost hours – everything you read prepares you for receiving the revelations that lurk somewhere in the sum total of human writing. Reading broadly, and aiming for serendipity, are the two best approaches for ensuring that those revelations can be recognised as such.